Maria Canton
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jun 23/99) - When the recreation supervisor at the Yellowknife Correctional Centre would tell people where she worked, they would jokingly refer to it as the Yellowknife Carving Institute.

And with the centre bringing in more than 10,000 pounds of soapstone a year, inmates are given a chance to refocus their energies, return to their cultures and hone a skill.

"At one time, we'd get guys in here and they would carve the entire time," says recreation supervisor Michele Hilchey.

"We were running out of places to store all of the carvings."

Since those days, in the late-'80s, YCC has put a limit on the number of carvings an inmate can have in his possession at one time and has developed a comprehensive three-level educational carving program.

"We have inmates instructing the program -- we happen to have some instructors who are about the best around," says Shirley Kemeys-Jones, YCC's deputy warden of programs.

Inmates are eligible to apply to the three-week carving program once they begin serving their time.

Classes run everyday from 8:30 a.m.-3 p.m. and the Inmates Welfare Fund provides the soapstone, masks and tools needed to learn the fundamentals of carving.

"About 90 per cent of those who start the program finish it," says Hilchey.

"It gives them a chance to decide if they like it or not and many discover it's their forte."

A whopping 80 per cent go on to use the carving skills they learned in YCC after their release date to either generate their main source of income or as a supplement it to or simply as a hobby.

Rudy Mingilgak, one of the two orientation program instructors, is a long-time carver who started when he was living in Cambridge Bay.

Tucked away in a back corner of the jail, Mingilgak works in the carving room on a piece he has made from wonderstone that looks grey, but turns a deep, solid black once he begins the

wet sanding process.

"Sometimes after teaching all day I can't speak," he says.

"I learned how to carve when I was 16 years old in Cambridge Bay, he recalled. "When I would find caribou bones I would carve them."

Mingilgak is one of 10 carvers in YCC's leisure carving program. Once an inmate completes the orientation program, he is eligible to enter the leisure program.

Inmates participating in the leisure program carve in the evenings, purchase their own stone, pay a nominal fee to use the room and can sell their carvings.

"The focus isn't to produce carvings to sell, although that's the end result," says Kemeys-Jones.

"But if somebody's in here and they can learn a skill, they'll be able to make a living when they are released."

The jail sells the carvings on Friday afternoons on a first-come first-serve basis. Monies from sales of carvings produced in the orientation program go directly into a fund for the purchase of more stone.

When a leisure carver sells a carving, however, he is allowed to keep a certain percentage of the sale and again it is often used to purchase more stone.

Mingilgak also participates in the third level of the carving programs -- giving carving demonstrations in the community.

YCC, working with the schools and the museum, arranges for select inmates to give carving demonstrations to the students.

"The carving demos promote positive community involvement on a cultural level and it's also a healthy re-introduction into the community," says Hilchey.